Chu Lingyun stood just beyond the police cordon surrounding the Lake District, her knuckles white where she gripped her phone. She desperately wanted to get closer, to confirm the details from her dream, but a powerful force suddenly yanked her back towards a flower bed.
"ID." The man's voice was like an ice pick chipping stone.
Chu Lingyun looked up, plunging into the depths of his fathomless eyes. His police uniform was smudged with soot, the badges on his shoulders gleaming coldly in the morning mist – a young detective with a stern, unyielding expression.
"Gao Muyang. Municipal Bureau's Criminal Investigation Division." He flashed his badge, his gaze like a searchlight raking over the crumpled fabric of her clothes clenched in her fist. "A slip of a girl like you. Everyone else is running *from* a fire scene, but here you are, pushing *towards* it. Talk. What are you doing here?"
His words were sharp, merciless, interrogating her like a suspect. Chu Lingyun opened her mouth to explain, but the sheer aura of lethal authority radiating from him choked her words.
In the distance, a fire truck's siren suddenly wailed, sharp and piercing. Instinctively, she stumbled back half a step. Her heel hit the flower bed. "It's... it's me... I... I had a dream..."
"A *dream*?!" Gao Muyang let out a derisive snort, casually pulling out his bodycam. "What? Dream about the arsonist?"
...
Watching the girl stammer incoherently only deepened Gao Muyang's suspicions. He'd had his eye on her from the start – skulking around the fire scene was inherently suspicious. Past experience screamed that perpetrators often returned to the scene of their crime, driven by a twisted need for stimulation or to gloat over their handiwork.
This case hadn't officially been declared a homicide yet, but since he'd been assigned to investigate, duty demanded he leave no stone unturned. No lead, however small, could be ignored.
And this person acting so strangely? *Was* she the culprit? Or someone connected to the crime? Either way, a thorough interrogation was definitely in order, Gao Muyang decided.
He stroked the coarse stubble on his chin, lost in thought, completely oblivious to the girl beneath his gaze who had turned sickly pale and was trembling like a leaf caught in a gale.
Chu Lingyun was timid by nature, prone to buckling under pressure. Faced with that stern visage looming close, coupled with the intimidating aura inherent to a homicide detective, her psychological pressure was immense. She tucked her chin down like a frightened quail, practically ready to drop to her knees on the spot.
Gritting her teeth against the tremors, she stammered out her defense, her words thick and slurred. But the more she protested, the deeper Gao Muyang's suspicion grew. Her display of sheer terror and weakness registered in his eyes as the most direct evidence of guilt. In his mind, she seamlessly ascended to the position of prime suspect.
Gao Muyang knew the principle – "Never judge a book by its cover." Anyone could be a hidden criminal. Yet, looking at this pale, delicate, utterly fragile girl standing before him, he couldn't suppress the internal doubt:
*This little thing? Can't lift, can't carry, refined and fragile, looks pitifully meek... How could she possibly be connected to something as brutal as arson? It just doesn't make sense!*
What Gao Muyang thought, he acted upon. With lightning speed, he hauled her over to a patch of greenery near the fire scene, ready to commence the interrogation proper.
Chu Lingyun, lacking backbone entirely and intimidated by this large, rough man, was desperate to spill everything she knew and bolt. She practically willed him to hurry up. Before he could even pose a question, she launched into her explanation, the words came pouring out of her, babbling nonstop.
Chu Lingyun frantically spilled everything she knew to Gao Muyang, words tumbling out in a desperate torrent. She was terrified that if she spoke too slowly, she'd be rewarded with a complimentary pair of "shiny bracelets" – handcuffs.
Her gist was this: she'd had a precognitive dream the night before, which perfectly foretold this very apartment building fire. That's why she'd specifically traveled across districts early that morning.
She vehemently protested her innocence. She insisted she truly only wanted to see the state of the scene, harbored no ill intent, was absolutely *not* the perpetrator, and this was all one colossal misunderstanding.
Gao Muyang snorted coldly. "You say you're not, so you're not? Criminals don't wear name tags, and they sure as hell don't confess unprompted. Evidence is the only thing that talks here."